3.1 Cutting forces
Cutting force is an indicator of the state of tool wear during machining and Figure 3 shows the average cutting force \({Fx}_{ave}\)、\({Fy}_{ave}\) and \({Fxy}_{ave}\) during the steady-state cutting for the untreated and treated samples. It can be seen that there is hardly appreciable change in the cutting force of \({Fx}_{ave}\) for all samples with the increasing cutting length due to a very short period in the X direction. Contrary to the \({Fx}_{ave}\), the cross-feed cutting force \({Fy}_{ave}\) for all tools increases progressively with the increase of the cutting distances (Figure 3.b) and the cutting force for the untreated sample increases more sharply than that for treated samples. In addition, 0.5T treated sample exhibit the slowest increases in the cutting force. It is widely known that tool wear increases with increasing cutting distances, and the tool cutting edges become blunted and lose their original geometries gradually. The deterioration of the tool geometry leads to an increase in the cutting force [14] and therefore, it is expected that the wear area for the untreated sample will be significantly higher than that for the treated samples. The variation of the resultant cutting force \({Fxy}_{ave}\) with the cutting distance shown in Figure 3.c is almost the same as that of the \({Fy}_{ave}\)(Figure 3.b). This is mainly due to the fact that the cutting period in the Y direction is much longer than that in the X direction and the feed in the Y direction during the cutting process is much larger than that in the X direction. As a result, the \({F}_{y}\) is much greater than \({F}_{x}\) during the cutting period. Similar to what observed in \({Fy}_{ave}\), the tool treated with a 0.5T field presents the lowest value in the resultant cutting force and the values of \({Fxy}_{ave}\) for the 0.5T and 1.0T treated tools are 14.53% and 3.61% lower than the value of \({Fxy}_{ave}\) for the untreated tool respectively in the last feed.
3.2 Cutting vibrations
As the tool wears, the cutting process becomes unstable and the cutting vibration increases. Based on the wavelet packet decomposition (WPD), the main cutting force \({F}_{y}\)during the last feed was decomposed and reconstructed in the time-frequency domain, and the static cutting force characteristics and dynamic cutting vibration characteristics related to tool wear characteristics were extracted through high and low frequency separation. In addition, the wavelet packet coefficient energy value (feature energy) of the \(\text{m-}\text{th}\) signal band calculated according to Eq. (1-2) and the total feature energy for all tools during the last feed were used as the indicator of tool wear and cutting stability as illustrated in Figure 4. It can be seen that for all tools, the feature energy in the E1 and E2 bands accounts for more than 95% of the total feature energy and the feature energy is mainly distributed in the first frequency band (E1).
The reconstructed signal in E1 band implies the static cutting forces and the reconstructed signal in the high frequency band (E2) suggests the dynamic cutting vibrations caused by periodic cutting during milling process. The feature energies in the E1 band for all treated tools are lower than the feature energy for the untreated tool. In addition, tools treated by 0.5T and 1.0T fields exhibit significant lower energies compared to the untread tool. These differences in feature energies of the static cutting forces correspond exactly to the variation of the cross-feed cutting force \({Fy}_{ave}\) in Figure 3.c. Comparing the feature energy of the second frequency band (E2), it can be found that the degree of the dynamic cutting vibrations has decreased after PMT and in particular, the cutting vibration energy for the tool treated by a 1.0T field is the lowest, which is 46.8% lower than that of the untreated tool. For the total feature energy, since the feature energy of the static cutting forces is much greater than that of the dynamic cutting vibrations, the tool treated by the 0.5T field still has the lowest energy, and is decreased by 27.09% as compare to the untreated tool during the last feed. These results indicate the PMT provides a more stable cutting process at a lower vibrational energy, as reported previously by Yuan et al [11].
3.3 Tool wear
Asan important indicator of the milling performance of the tool[15], flank wear is examined and their morphologies are shown in Figure 5.As each end mill is comprised of two long cutting edges and two short cutting edges, typical failure modes of the cutting edge are provided for the analysis. It can be seen from the Figure 5 that nose wear (thenormal flank wear), build-up edge (BUE), chipping and fracture of the cutting edge are noted after the cutting process. In the case of untreated tools (Figure 5.a1), it can be observed obviously that there is a large area of coating delamination and flaking occurred on the flank face and the severe unevenness of the coating along the cutting edge may in turn initiate ploughing instead of shearing during the cutting and led to the catastrophic tool fracture, as shown in Figure 5.b1. It is expected thatthe poor cutting edge integrity and non-uniform of the coating along the cutting edge lead to greater ploughing forces, inturn, cause immediatecatastrophic fracture of the tool[16]. In the sharp contrast, the tool treated by the 0.5T field exhibits the significantly smaller wear area of the coating and slight chipping wear, which suggests that a significant portion of TiAlSiN coating still retains on the end mill surface. As tribo-oxidation behavior causes the TiAlSiN coating to form an alumina surface protective layer with high chemical and thermodynamic stability, which critically helps prevent the stainless steel from sticking to the tool, coatings remaining on the flank face will reduce the amount of the BUE formed during the cutting process. The increase in the strength of the field treatment to1T and 1.5 T leads to increasing flaking area of the coating and the occurrence of the chipping. However, compared with the untreated tool, the chipping area of the cutting edge of the tool treated by 1.0T and 1.5T field is reduced. In general, the untreated tool presents severe tool wear and the significant distortion of cutting edge shapes weaken the strength of the cutting edge, resulting in deteriorated cutting performance and inferior service life [17]. In contrast, the treated tools exhibit relatively less wear and maintain a better cutting edge integrity. It can be inferred that the degree of wear of tools field is reduced after the PMT and consistent with the result of the cutting force (Figure 3). What should be noted is that the relative movement between the workpiece and the tool promotes the cyclic removal of BUE, and the formation and tearing off of the BUE during cutting usually lead to the coating delamination or flaking, and the machining forces instability, which results in cutting edge chipping [18, 19], as evident in Figure 5.a1. Moreover, the cyclic formation and disappearance of the BUE caused by its periodic fractures will further leads to the cutting instability, which causes the cutting vibration and different tool wear [20].
VBmax and
values of four cutting edges for each tool were compiled in Figure 6 based on SEM images to further evaluate the cutting performance of tools. According to ISO standard, the flank wear value of 0.3mm is used as the standard of tool wear failure. Note that the differences of the \({VB}_{max}\)values for the same tool are very large as four cutting edges in the end mill possess varying lengths. It can be seen that the \(\stackrel{-}{{VB}_{max}}\) values of tools treated by pulsed magnetic field decrease dramatically in comparison with the that of untreated tool. In particular, the shape of most cutting edges for the tool treated by the 0.5T field remains relatively intact and present the smallest wear area, which results in a 57.65% decrease in the \(\stackrel{-}{{VB}_{max}}\).
3.4 Surface roughness
Surface roughness is one of the most important factors affecting the appearance of the product, reliability and functionality[21]. The average surface roughness (ASR, Ra) is a common measure for evaluating the surface texture and the three-dimensional surface morphology and average surface roughness of the workpiece are shown in Figure 7.It can be observed that the surface exhibits a typical milling surface morphology with a semicircular ridge formed by the circular motion of the cutting edge in the feed direction. The treated tools all show a relatively smoother surface morphology and smaller surface roughness. As indicated previously, the loss ofthe flank edges (catastrophic cutting edge fracture) under dynamic vibrations tends to cause higher radial roughness (Ra) values and lead to more noticeablefeed mark embossments[22]. Therefore, the better workpiece surface finish is attributed to the better preservation of the sharpness of the cutting edge. In particular, surface morphology produced by the 0.5T treated tool shows the smoothest surface and compared with the untreated tool, the average surface roughness of the tool treated by the 0.5T field is reduced by 25.4%. As the smaller profile height between surface peaks and valley can translate into a smoother and stronger machined surface with better dimensions and mechanical properties[22], the difference in the surface roughness is attributed to the fact that a less wear tool with a better integrity of the cutting edge tends to introduce a smaller ploughing effect and a better surface quality.
3.5 Residual stress
The above results indicate that 0.5 T field is the optimum processing parameter for improving the cutting performance of the coated tool. Therefore, the parameter was adopted for further comparison analysis. In most applications, a key factor in the service life and performance of coated components is the adhesion of the coating to the substrate. The premise of the protective function of surface coatings on cutting tools is that the coating has a good adhesion strength to the tool substrate during the service process [23]. The above results clearly indicate PMT can indeed improve the cutting performance of the coated tools and the improvement in the performance is closely associated with the adhesion strength of the TiAlSiN coating to the substrate.
The indentation test is employed to preliminarily evaluate the adhesion strength of the interface between the TiAlSiN coating and the cemented carbide substrate and the result is provided in Figure 8. It can be seen that a large area of the coating spallation around the indent is observed for the untreated sample, in addition to several large and long cracks and many short cracks. In comparison, the degree of the coating spallation and the formation of cracks are greatly reduced after the PMT, implying a better adhesion strength of the coating to the substrate induced by the pulsed field. For further analysis, the scratch experiment is employed to quantitatively analyze the adhesion strength (bonding force) and the scratch morphologies are shown in Figure 9. At the beginning of the scratch, the load is very low and the scratch is smooth due to the defects such as droplets and pits on the coating surface. As the load increases, transverse cracks begin to occur at the edges of the coating. Lc2 in Figure 9 represents the load value where the coating is continuous cracking along the scratch track which shows the real adhesion [24]. For the WC-12wt%Co sample deposited with TiAlSiN coating, a value of Lc2 equal to 83.24 N, is obtained before the treatment (Figure 9.a)
Whereas, Lc2 achieves the value of 92.02N (Figure 9.b) after PMT, which indicates a 10.55% increase in the bonding force and enhanced adhesion between the coating and this substrate with the introduction of the pulsed field. According to the previous literature [25], the residual stress developed in the coating structure is an important factor affecting the adhesion between a coating and a substrate. In addition, since the compressive stress counteracts the crack initiation and propagation in the coating, they are considered as advantageous for loaded tools, and a higher compressive stress implies a longer service life of coated tools[26].The residual stress developed in the TiAlSiN coating of the tools are examined and the results are provided in Figure 10.It can be clearly seen that the residual stress developed in the TiAlSiN coating of the untreated sample is a compressive residual stress with a magnitude of 421Mpa; after PMT (0.5T), the compressive residual stress increases to 679Mpa, representing a remarkable 61% improvement. The increase in the residual compressive stress is expected to enhance the bonding strength between the TiAlSiN coating and the cemented carbide substrate, which is consistent with the adhesion strength result in Figure 9. Due to the enhancement of the adhesion strength after PMT, more TiAlSiN coating remains on the cutting edge to participate in subsequent cutting with less substrate exposure, which will be beneficial for the reduction of friction and thermal energy dissipation at the cutting zone. It is obvious that the reductions of cutting force and cutting heat effectively slow down the accumulation of deformation and internal damage in the cemented carbide substrate. As mentioned before, a higher temperature and a higher cutting force are the main reasons that cause the adhesion of work piece material onto the tool flank face and thus accelerating the tool wear. This enhancement of the adhesion strength will indirectly lead to the alleviation of BUE formation and shedding, which can avoid further damage to the non-shedding coating and the aggravation of the cutting vibrations. These factors (lower BUE formation and lower progressive build-up), coupled with the alleviation of the internal damage in the cemented carbide substrate while cutting, lead to the reduction of the probability of tool edge chipping and fracture, which can cause a lower ploughing force and a relatively small cutting vibration. Therefore, the enhancement of the adhesion strength of the TiAlSiN coating after PMT reduces the formation of BUE and the cutting vibrations, and chipping and fracture of the cutting edge are less prone to occur, resulting in a longer tool life and a better cutting performance.
3.6 Mechanical properties of the cemented carbides substrate
The Vickers hardness and fracture toughness of the cemented carbides matrix before and after the PMT are compiled in Figure 11 to assess mechanical properties of the substrate material. It can be seen in the Figure that the Vickers hardness of the carbide cemented material exhibits a marginal increase after PMT, while the indentation fracture toughness is increased substantially by 8% with the imposition of a pulsed magnetic field. Previous reports indicates that one of the major underlying mechanisms is such that the introduction of the pulsed magnetic field tends to promote the formation of the dislocations within the cemented carbides to strengthen the material. As a result, hardness of the materials presents a slight increase. Fracture toughness is a characterization of the ability of a material to prevent crack propagation. When a crack is formed, it tends to propagate along a path with the least resistance and usually presents a fast progress rate within the brittle materials. As the pulsed field strengthens the cemented carbides matrix, it is expected that the resistance to the crack path is enhanced, which reduces the crack growth rate. Accordingly, not only can the pulsed field alter the interface residual stress, but also can strengthen the substrate material to improve the toughness while maintaining the hardness. As a result, chipping and fracture of the cutting edge are less prone to occur after the PMT treatment.